PrairiePundit

  Daily Mail: Biden's ambassador to Bahrain Steven Bondy used insulting and racist language about Arabs 'all the time' and Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan believes he treats people 'like garbage', a new report claims The Biden administration responded to allegations with more insults. 

Trump and his administration appear to be the only ones who got this right.  The entire media establishment and former Democrat officials were dead wrong.

Washington Post: Suspicions of Iran’s role in arming Bahraini militants once drew skepticism. No longer. The discovery of weapons caches adds to the signs of growing militancy that have been cropping up for years in Bahrain, a U.S. ally and home to the Navy’s Fifth Fleet. Now, U.S. and European analysts see an increasingly grave threat emerging on the margins of the uprising: heavily armed militant cells supplied and funded, officials say, by Iran. This is more evidence of the naive policy of Obama in dealing with the genocidal Islamic religious bigots who rule Iran.  Iran took the cash transfer and is using it to prop up its proxies in its war with US allies.  It is also more evidence of Obama's vastly overrated intellect and that of his supporters.

Al Arabia: The leaders of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards launched provocative statements against the Gulf states threatening to intervene in Bahrain and Yemen. The comments were reported by Iranian media after what they described as a “victory in Aleppo,” upon the massacres, starvation and displacement against civilians. Aleppo was considered as one of the strongholds of the opposition; however, the Syrian regime took a hold of it with the help and support of Iranian and Russian military troops. In this context, the deputy commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Gen. Hossein Salami told the official Iranian news agency Islamic Republic News Agency that “The victory in Aleppo will pave the way for liberating Bahrain,” pointing out that Iran has an expansion project that will extend to Bahrain, Yemen and Mosul after the fall of the Syrian city of Aleppo. Salami said that “the people of Bahrain will achieve their wishes, the Yemeni people will be delighted, and the residents of ...

Washington Times: New emails Monday show the Clinton Foundation using Huma Abedin to try to arrange meetings between the foundation ’s supporters and then-State Department Secretary Hillary Clinton . In one exchange Doug Band, who headed the Clinton Global Initiative, asked Ms. Abedin to try to help with a visa for a soccer player from a British team, Wolverhampton FC. Ms. Abedin at first thought she might be able to speed up the interview, but then said she was worried about crossing lines. “Makes me nervous to get involved but I’ll ask,” she told Mr. Band in one message obtained by Judicial Watch, a conservative group that’s pushed to get a look at the Clinton emails. “Then dont [sic],” Mr. Band replied to Ms. Abedin . During the May 2009 exchange, Mr. Band also complained about the difficulty of connecting with Ms. Abedin through her confusing array of different email addresses. “You have 50 email accounts,” Mr. Band wrote. In another exchange Mr. Band appeared to be trying ...

Reuters: Bahrain said on Wednesday it had caught an Iranian-linked cell plotting attacks on its territory, days after it followed its close ally Saudi Arabia in cutting ties with Iran. There was no immediate reaction from Iran, caught up in a mounting diplomatic dispute with its regional rival Saudi Arabia and other Sunni-led Gulf states including Bahrain. "A secret terrorist plot aided by the so-called Iranian Revolutionary Guard and the Hezbollah terrorist organization was foiled," the Gulf island kingdom's state news agency BNA reported. "It targeted the security of the kingdom of Bahrain by (plotting to) carry out a series of dangerous bombings," it added. ... Bahrain had already broken diplomatic ties with Iran after the sacking of the Saudi embassy in Tehran.  Hezballah has been a traditional proxy forces used by Iran for terrorist attacks on a world wide scale.

Guardian: Bahrain arrests former Gitmo pair The two were caught trying to enter Bahrain from Saudi Arabia using forged passports.  Bahrain has been the site of a Shia  uprising.  It is not clear why Sunni terrorist would want to join them, but al Qaeda is always interested in making mischief where it can.

Reuters: Iran rejected accusations from Gulf Arab states that it was meddling in their affairs, saying those countries were "running away from reality", an Iranian news agency reported on Wednesday. Six U.S.-allied states demanded Iran end what they called interference in the region, in a statement on Tuesday at the end of a two-day summit of the Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), reiterating a long-held mistrust of their main rival. The communique did not elaborate, but the most common Gulf Arab complaint relates to Bahrain, which has repeatedly accused Tehran of interference in its internal politics by provoking protests. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast dismissed the statement. "Shifting the responsibility for the domestic problems of the regional countries is a way of running away from reality, and blaming others or using oppressive methods are not the right ways to answer civil demands," he said, according to the Iranian Students...

Observer/Guardian: Bahrain police deploy teargas at anti-Kim Kardashian protest Will Obama try to find an excuse to arrest her too?

Guardian: When Bahrain 's foreign minister, Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmed al-Khalifa, went to Tehran for a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement last week despite tensions with Iran , he did not expect to return home red faced. In translating the speech made by the Egyptian president, Iran's state television simply altered some words, replacing " Syria " with "Bahrain" when Mohamed Morsi was referring to the country in connection with the events sweeping across the Arab world. Speaking in Iran, which is a strong ally of the Bashar al-Assad's regime, Morsi was warning that the "oppressive" Syrian regime had lost all its legitimacy, urging the world to support Syria's rebels. "Hamad Al Amer, the foreign affairs undersecretary for regional and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) affairs, has summoned the Iranian charge d'affaires and handed him a formal protest note following the tampering by the Iranian media and replacing Syria with Bahrain in...

Rowan Scarborough: Iran  is contemplating violently shutting down shipping in the Persian Gulf as one of several counterattack options if  Israel  strikes its nuclear facilities, regional and intelligence analysts say. Such attacks would present the  Obama administration  with the option of undertaking a limited war against  Iran  by striking its warships and shore-based anti-ship missiles to keep the Gulf open for business. Former  CIA  analyst  Larry C. Johnson  said  Iran  has enough firepower to effectively close the Gulf and Strait of Hormuz, through which 40 percent of all the world’s oil moves. “One of the things that  Iran  has exercised, has the capability to do, is shut down the Persian Gulf,”  Mr. Johnson  said. “The best-case scenario is they shut it down for a week. The worst case is they shut it down for three to four months.” He said  Iran  could unleash small boats l...

Arab News: The Bahraini judiciary on Sunday linked a busted "terrorist" cell to Iran's Revolutionary Guards, a day after announcing the arrest of five Bahrainis planning attacks in the country. The five men are accused of belonging to a "terrorist group" with ties to the intelligence services of a foreign state, a judiciary spokesman said, quoted by state news agency BNA. He said the five were to be "sent to Iran to receive military training," notably with the elite Revolutionary Guards. ... This seems to confirm my speculation about the source of this terror threat earlier.  The threat was really not all that different from the attempted Iran plot to murder the Saudi ambassador o the US.  Both plots seem rather desperate   Those who discounted the plot in the US give too much credit to the intelligence of Iran's religious bigots.  

Scotsman on Sunday: BAHRAIN said yesterday it had broken up a terrorist cell planning to “target” its interior ministry. The Bahrain government said that the cell also planned to target the Saudi embassy and a causeway linking the island state with neighbouring Saudi Arabia.    It added that the cell had been broken up and its members captured. Four Bahraini members of the cell were detained by authorities in neighbouring Qatar after they entered the Gulf Arab state from Saudi Arabia, the state news agency BNA quoted an interior ministry spokesman as saying. The four had documents and a computer that included details on vital installations.  “The Qatari security authorities questioned the suspects and inquiries in Qatar revealed that the suspects had illegally left Bahrain after being incited by others to head to Iran, passing through Qatar and Syria, to establish a group that carries out armed terrorist operations in Bahrain against vital establishments and in...

Image via Wikipedia Richard Fernandez: ... Having declared himself on the side of the demonstrators and no longer the defender of the status quo, many of the participants in the Arab Street will ask Obama to make his bones. And the only way President Obama can prove that he’s on their side is to throw one or two dictators their way. The Bush plan would be to throw Khamenei and Assad to the crowds first. But that appears to be off the table, because he wants to talk to them, so in the Obama variation the alternative appears to be giving only America’s allies in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the only democracy in the Middle East, Israel, the heave-ho. When it is too hard to ditch your enemies, ditch those who trusted you. ... If our friends in the Middle East were members of the AFL-CIO they would have stood a better chance of being protected as friends. Talking to Assad and Iran is a fools errand and Obama seems to think he is just the guy for the job. Ditching our friends in the r...

Image by sharnik via Flickr Fox News: Iran is secretly helping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad put down pro-democracy demonstrations, according to U.S. officials, who say Tehran is providing gear to suppress crowds and assistance blocking and monitoring protesters' use of the Internet, cellphones and text-messaging. At the same time, communications intercepted by U.S. spy agencies show Tehran is actively exploring ways to aid some Shiite hardliners in Bahrain and Yemen and destabilize longstanding U.S. allies there, say U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence. Such moves could challenge interests of the U.S. and Saudi Arabia and inflame sectarian tensions across the Middle East, they say. "We believe that Iran is materially assisting the Syrian government in its efforts to suppress their own people," said an Obama administration official. ... I have been saying for sometime that Iran is likely helping Syria suppress the will of the people. The sniper str...

Image via Wikipedia Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi: In retaliation for the UAE and Saudi Arabia’s decision to deploy troops to Bahrain , Iran’s hardliners have called for the deployment of suicide bombers there in support of the Shiite protesters. Iran-Bahrain relations hit an all-time low when the Sunni government of Bahrain called on the Gulf Cooperation Council countries to dispatch troops to Bahrain to assist in quelling the uprising by majority Shiite Muslims against the Sunni leadership. Now six people are reported dead and hundreds injured. It is unclear how much of a role the Gulf forces played in quashing the protesters. Demanding an answer, Tehran summoned the Saudi ambassador and recalled its own ambassador from Bahrain. Now there is also news that Basiji, the auxiliary Iranian militia, have attacked the Saudi consulate in Mash’had and broken its windows. One Iranian regime-run site, Shia-Online, published a letter from Bahraini Shiites who have made an appeal to Khamenei c...

Image via Wikipedia Independent: Abrutal counter-revolution is sweeping through the Arabian Peninsula as Bahrain and Yemen both declare war on reform movements and ferociously try to suppress them with armed force. In Yemen police and snipers on rooftops opened fire on Friday on a mass demonstration outside the main university, killing at least 42 people. The government has since declared martial law and set up checkpoints throughout the capital, Sanaa. In Bahrain repression began a few days earlier, when King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa called for military support from other Gulf monarchs and 1,000 troops from Saudi Arabia crossed into the island kingdom. "This was the green light for our army to kill people," says Ali Salman , the leader of al-Wefaq , the main opposition party. As decisively as in Yemen the Bahraini al-Khalifa royal family has rejected reform and showed that it intends to hold power by armed force. Serried ranks of riot police advancing behind a cloud...

Image via Wikipedia From the NY Times: Interests of Saudi Arabia and Iran Collide, With the U.S. in the Middle The Iranians are backing the Shia in Bahrain so they can kick the US out of its strategic navel base  on the Island in the Arabian Gulf formerly known as the Persian Gulf .  They have zero interest in democracy anywhere as can be proven by their record at home.  Our interest should coincide with the Saudis who do not want the Iranians to have control of their neighbor. This looks like another mistake by the Obama administration. Related articles What's Really Happening In Bahrain And Why It Matters (businessinsider.com) The Proxy War In Bahrain: Saudi Arabia Vs. Iran (businessinsider.com) Never Too Soon to Realize We're Allies: (brothersjuddblog.com)

NY Times: Thousands of demonstrators poured into this nation’s symbolic center, Pearl Square, late Tuesday in a raucous rally that again demonstrated the power of popular movements that are transforming the political landscape of the Middle East. In a matter of hours, this small, strategically important monarchy experienced the now familiar sequence of events that has rocked the Arab world. What started as an on-line call for a “Day of Rage,” progressed within 24 hours to an exuberant group of demonstrators, cheering, waving flags, setting up tents and taking over the grassy traffic circle beneath the towering monument of a pearl in the heart of the capital city. The crowd grew bolder as it grew larger, and as in Tunisia and Egypt, modest concessions from the government only raised expectations among the protesters, who by day’s end were talking about tearing the whole system down, monarchy and all. Then as momentum built up behind the protests on Tuesday, the 18 members of par...

Image via Wikipedia NY Times: The police officers, 20 of them, raised their weapons and fired rubber bullets and canisters of tear gas directly into a small group of protesters chanting slogans and holding signs. One man fell instantly and was shot at as he squirmed on the ground. Another was trapped against a wall and writhed as an officer shot rubber bullets at him, again. That scene, on Avenue 28 with a police car supervising at about 5:30 pm, was played out all over this island nation on Monday as police attacked peaceful protesters, men, women and children, chasing them down, firing at them with rubber bullets and overwhelming them with tear gas. At times the tear gas was so heavy, and fired with such abandon, that the police also succumbed, dropping to the ground to vomit. This small nation in the Persian Gulf, with only about 1 million residents, half of them foreign workers, has long been among the most politically volatile in the region. The principal tension is between ...